Black holes from the LHC could survive for minutes

There is absolutely, positively, definitely no chance of the LHC destroying the planet when it eventually switches on some time later this year. Right?

Err, yep. And yet a few niggling doubts are persuading some scientists to run through their figures again. And the new calculations are throwing up some surprises.

One potential method of destruction is that the LHC will create tiny black holes that could swallow everything in their path including the planet. In 2002, Roberto Casadio at the Universita di Bologna in Italy and a few pals reassured the world that this was not possible because the black holes would decay before they got the chance to do any damage.

Now they’re not so sure. The question is not simply how quickly a mini-black hole decays but whether this decay always outpaces any growth.

Casadio have reworked the figures and now say that: ” the growth of black holes to catastrophic size does not seem possible.”

Does not seem possible? That’s not the unequivocal reassurance that particle physicists have been giving us up till now.

What’s more, the new calculations throw up a tricky new prediction. In the past, it had always been assumed that black holes would decay in the blink of an eye.

Not any more. Casadio and co say: “the expected decay times are much longer (and possibly ≫ 1 sec) than is typically predicted by other models”

Whoa, let’s have that again: these mini black holes will be hanging around for seconds, possibly minutes?

That doesn’t sound good. Anybody at CERN care to clarify?

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/0901.2948: On the Possibility of Catastrophic Black Hole Growth in the Warped Brane-World Scenario at the LHC

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237 Responses to “Black holes from the LHC could survive for minutes”

If one takes a close look at the inside of the paper, you’ll see that Casadio et al.’s model assumes that mBH’s that don’t escape the planet altogether come “to rest”, at which point Bondi (gravitational) accretion is supposed to dominate, but since the gravitational event horizon is so much smaller than the size of an atom, atoms rarely get close enough to get sucked in by the mBH’s gravity.

However, there is no such thing as “rest” within the center of the Earth: the temperature is 7000 K; the density is 13,000 kg per cubic meter. And, after all, temperature is just an epiphenomenon of moving particles–remember? My back of the envelope calculations show that the Fe atoms at the Earth’s core vibrate with an average velocity of 2500 m/s. So really, we should write the “at rest” accretion rate as dM/dt = 4 * π * v * ρ * R^{2}. (Since the atoms are vibrating in all directions, we have to use the formula for the area of a sphere instead the cross section.) Thus 4 * 2.5 km/s = 10 km/s.

That is, the effective velocity that an mBH feels while at “rest” within the Earth’s core is equivalent to an mBH traveling at just less than the escape velocity of the Earth. In other words, the accretion rate does not decline with the mBH’s velocity with respect to the center of the Earth–contra Casadio et al. In that case, accretion always outpaces Hawking radiation, and there is net, long-term growth. According to my calculations, an mBH could reach kilogram scales within one month.

Thank you for your comment. No doubt, that most of existing analysis are deadly incompetent – they neglecting everything, what we can assume for the case of micro-black hole placed at the center of planet. Most of ignored influences (charge, magnetic field, reactive force of accretion radiation, thermal motion, etc.) are increasing the risk and speed of catastrophic character of disastrous event by many orders.

My only problem is, why LHC was allowed to upgrade at all without such analysis. Now we have only minimal control over further evolution of LHC experiments.

Yeah, the LHC and CERN are not the most democratic institutions around. I can understand why there might be honest disagreement about whether the LHC represents an inadvisable risk or not, but I think everyone should agree no group of people–even physicists–should be beyond the rule of law. I say let’s have it out in court and let the judges decide. That would be the democratic thing to do.

We shouldn’t need to go to court to resolve this situation. Common sense should dictate the ethical standards that these research institutions conform to, however clearly the decisions makers at CERN & LHD appear to lack common sense, perhaps deliberately ?

If the physicists had all the answers they wouldn’t need to perform these experiments ? it is due to a lack of knowledge that they feel the need to continue. However this lack of knowledge proves that the experiment is unsafe, as any unknown variable that could potentially be unveiled during the experiment may infact be destructive.

Infact, the physicists should be forced to prove that their theories of the existence of the higgs boson and black holes are correct by developing software models that unequivocally display that these type of experiments are safe.

The reluctance, or should I say inability to create software models to prove that the physicists are correct, merely proves just how little they do infact know. If they had nearly all the variables of the universe known, a virtual mathematical model should be able to determine the remainder and should be executed time and time again for hundreds of years if neccersary before any physical experiments are allowed.

The arrogance and stupidity of these people is nearly beyond description.

Whats is it all for ? What do these people lack in life that requires them to place the existence of the world at stake ?

The surroundings of CERN are monitored firstly by the “Commission de Sécurite du CERN” (1), and secondly by two external bodies, the Swiss “Office Fédérale de la Santé Publique” (OFSP = Federal Health Agency FHA) (2) and the French “Institut de Radioprotection et de Sureté Nucléaire IRSN”.

(1) describes in detail what emissions were produced via the air and waste water in 2005 through the operation of the Isolde accelerator; monitors are fitted at the emission points to detect alpha, beta and gamma emissions permanently. The immissions are also measured using local dosimeters (ionisation chambers and rem counters) in the surroundings of CERN, and activity determined in soil and plant samples. Radionuclides and their activity are listed (exhaust air and waste water for the whole of 2005), such as 33 GBq H-3, 6,1 MBq iodine isotope, 6,8 TBq beta/gamma radionuclide with half life < 1 day. The doses occurring in the surroundings amounted in 2005 to 4% of the maximum of 0,3 mSv/a, hence 0,012mSv/a; in 2004 the figure was 0,014mSv/a.

At the same time as these monitoring measurements, the OFSP launched the “CERN Point Zero” measuring campaign, which serves to “clarify the radiological situation in the surroundings of CERN” (2,3) in the light of the start-up of the LHC. Additional measuring equipment and processes were set up for this purpose: thermo-luminescence dosimeters for gamma radiation and neutrons, ionisation chambers, gamma spectrometry for aerosol filters (main nuclide Be-7), water (Zn-65) and sediments from the Rhone, vegetables from the surroundings, including H-3 in wine. The measurements and the results are described in detail in (2).

The results show that according to the official publications the evidenced traces of radioactivity are considerably below the maximum set for radiation doses and hence do not constitute a hazard for the environment or the population.

The launch of a special “monitoring programme” might suggest that the operator and the administration cannot entirely exclude the possibility of increased radioactive effects on the surroundings as a result of the operation of the LHC. This leads to the question of whether the CERN surroundings were not already regularly and sufficiently monitored during all the years and why a new programme is needed.

A short report on the conditioning and storage of CERN’s radioactive waste is contained in (4). One further comment: apparently there was no accelerator still in operation in 2006/2007.

« … this may have been a bit careless »
Are researchers at the LHC of CERN playing with fire?

npa. The Large Hadron Collider LHC at CERN, currently switched off because of an emergency which unfolded without warning by its security systems, is expected to be functioning again in June 2009. On September 19th 2008 there was an explosion on the site. It was caused by a faulty electric connection between two of the huge magnets in the accelerator ring system.
Currently there are thorough cleaning and fixing measures being carried out. It became apparent that the security outlets were too small – and they still are. The resulting pressure was «beyond design». That means in plain words: nobody pictured this sort of scenario even under worst case conditions. Right now improvements throughout the accelerator ring are getting installed. An official announcement states that time until June 2009 is not sufficient for those improvements to be completed in the whole ring, and that therefore the start of the experiment has to be postponed until 2010. But one gets the impression that security is not very high on the physicists’ agenda considering that only those parts damaged by the explosion will have the improvements installed and the remainder is due only in winter 2009/2010! Nevertheless the system will be switched on in summer, only without applying the maximum energy level. Who will accept responsibility for any further unforeseen events?
The analysis of the accident seems to show that there were warning signs but according to James Gilliers, spokesman at CERN, it was only retrospectively figured out how to interpret them. Still there would have been enough time for appropriate measures, claims the «Neue Zürcher Zeitung» on 6./7. Dezember 08, as usual quite biased towards the LHC. No reason to be reassured, indeed. Moreover nobody had imagined that those electric cables would turn out to be a major risk factor. “In retrospect many a physicist at CERN will have woundered if this may have been a bit careless”, the «Neue Zürcher Zeitung» comments.
Now things like electric cables and security outlets do sound familiar after all. The experiment which is meant to start at the LHC at CERN in June 2009 is something less familiar, though. And again the CERN team involved does not „believe” that this experiment might be dangerous whatsoever. What does their believe rest upon? Up to now all warning voices were simply ignored – and where shall we go from here?
In this proposed LHC experiment energy levels will be reached that were unheard of so far in any particle accelerator. Possibly this will lead to the creation of microscopic black holes. This possibility is seriously discussed throughout the scientific community. But nevertheless a hot discussion starting from this point seems to be banned: the CERN team refuses to realize in a stubborn, pig-headed and fanciful way that all even remotely possible disastrous consequences of black hole formation have to be addressed, taken into consideration and be dealt with in risk management analyses. A scandal. Independent scientists openly challenge those security assertions at CERN.
There are no experiences with micro black holes so far, all statements about them are based on theories, hypotheses and modell calculations with certain parameters and axioms. Some physicists voiced their serious concerns with modell calculations pointing at possible consequences that are anything but harmless. Independent scientists have come forward with scenarios which are by no means less plausible in themselves than those predicted by CERN. Considering many open schientific questions independent researchers demand to postpone the experiment and to lead an open, honest discussion instead without any taboos (see Zeit-Fragen Nr. 31 of 28.7.2008).
One of the independent scientists is the german expert for particle astrophysics Rainer Plaga, who developed a theory of micro black holes («On the potential catastrophic risk from metastable quantum-black holes produced at particle colliders» http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0808/0808.1415v2.pdf). According to Plaga it is conceivable, that micro black holes, which might be created in the LHC, would be “quasi stable”: They could grow somewhat in a fraction of a second and stay stable afterwards for several years. “Stable“ under these conditions means, that surrounding matter would be absorbed and turned into energy, which would constantly radiate from the microscopic black hole, leaving its mass stable. This constant radiation emanating from the black hole could turn out to be more desastrous than the actual growth by the uptake of surrounding earth, the so called accretion.
Plaga illustrates his theory with one possible scenario: under certain conditions a black hole with a mass of 1kg could be created and stay stable for 3 * 1017 years (i.e. 300 000 000 000 000 000 years). Its radiation per second would equal 12 Mt (mega tons) of TNT ! That is the same amount of energy as if major hydrogen bombs would explode next to the CERN every other second! And there could be more than one black hole being created in the LHC, in fact the CERN could turn into a «factory of micro black holes». The resulting radiation could be greater than a million times the total seismic power of the planet Earth. Plaga predicts catastrophic consequences such as a magnitude of global warming like never before and worldwide earth quakes.
Do the managers and physicists at CERN have everything under control? Is it justified to keep playing with such enormous energy powers if scientists from all over the world voice their warnings and stress the absolute uncertainty of what might happen in the proposed LHC experiment, if both harmless results and total desaster are discussed within the scope of current physical theories? Why should the LHC experiment, «the greatest experiments of all times», be carried out so fast and at all costs, circumventing all scientific and political discussions and security concerns?
In fact in this case the precautionary principle, as laid down in several international law treaties (such as the UN declaration of Rio about environment and development 1992) and also in the European Union contract of Maastricht ( 18 out of 30 CERN member states belong to the EU), should be applied. The precautionary principle is regarded as the public political guideline of choice in all situations which are potentially hazardous to health or environment. It requires action to reduce risks well before there is “proof” of exactly how dangerous the situation might be, if it could turn out to cause irreversible harm. This is especially true in scenarios where science is unsure, provided „ according to current state of knowledge … there is suspicion of danger or the potential for concern“( Guidelines for environment precautionary protection, German Federal Government 1986).
Rainer Plaga compares CERN’s approach with entering new territory and only watching out for potentially interesting discoveries but not for possible dangers. He suggests security measures to minimize the risk of unwanted consequences in the starting phase of the experiment. Methodologically similar measures were taken in other areas of fundamental research under comparable circumstances. This should be discussed, too. Postponing the experiment could create the necessary timeframe for this discussion, especially since the technical security measures that everybody agrees upon now will take until spring 2010 anyway.

Expert opinion, or: If it gets irresponsible to risk possible consequences
Experts of the IAEA had testified for the RBMK reactor to be utterly safe and harmless not long before one of them blew up in Chernobyl on April 26th 1986. Reality proved them to be wrong, with consequences of catastrophic dimensions. The helium accident at the European Nuclear Research Facility CERN in Geneva, which had been caused by a faulty electric contact according to CERN, is a reality too. The emergency didn’t unfold in unknown pysical territories consisting of theories and hypotheses like those to be entered in the planned LHC experiments. Cryotechnics, data link and high current technics are calculable methods that have been successfully used for decades in countless applications. The fact that even in this area human mistakes and insufficient security measures can lead to substantial – in the case of CERN only financial, thank goodness – consequences, is proof enough: The physicists and engineers at CERN are not in control of the known, and we should be inclined to trust them handling the completely unknown? Never! To some degree the collective playing spirit may be understandable, and some of them might hope for the nobel prize. But especially in the case of CERN, scrutinizing environmental safety of the particle accelerator and its risky experiments is even more important than that of, say, a new motorway, a waste incinerator or a big airport. And this shouldn’t be carried out by people in some way or another connected to CERN scientifically, economically, politically or in terms of administration. Legal gray zones and safe havens are created here by the multinational character of CERN. Who will be held accountable if things get utterly messed up like in Chernobyl, and how much will be paid for any damage done to the people?
Miscalculations, systematic misinformation, and hopes for profit in business and politics circles have caused countless people to suffer and even die from nuclear accidents, asbestos, weapon manufactoring etc. in recent decades. As far as applications of genetic engineering and nanotechnology are concerned, areas in which the boundaries of reliable knowledge have been trespassed long ago, policy makers prefer to believe in the propaganda of potential profiteers and their experts. That’s how easy it gets, if scientists and their sponsors in politics and business are not held accountable for any damage.
The former(Bavarian) Minister president Strauss fully trusted his experts and declared to the concerned people :“The (nuclear waste reprocessing) plant at Wackersdorf is as safe as a bicycle spoke factory.” Are there possibly speculations on some spin-off for new weapon principles based on anti-matter that might make it even easier to subdue mankind? Ernest Rutherford, one of the pioneers of nuclear physics, nobel prize laureate and teacher of Niels Bohr and Otto Hahn already knew: «Some fool in a – nuclear – laboratory might blow up the whole univers.»
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Edmund Lengfelder,
Otto Hug Strahleninstitut – MHM,
Jagdhornstrasse 52, D-81827 München

Humanity, in my humble opinion is opening up a can of worms, that once opened cannot be put back. Why such a rush to create black holes? Let the universal order handle such things. Creating black holes is so “unnatural” for a Type I civilization that it is akin to providing a racecar and an open lane to a toddler in the hopes that he will drive safely once he figures out how to start the engine. While I am for scientific progress, I am not for it at any cost. In time we will all benefit from scientific discoveries, but lets slow down…the future will get here soon enough.

Fact: There are no generally accepted theoretical models of coalescence of microscopic black holes…
Fact: There IS a great degree of certainty that some microscopic black holes will be produced by the LHC.
Fact: No one can say how the Hawking radiation decay rate scales with size or what the growth curve is of a black hole in the esoteric environment of a particle acellerator.

What i can tell you is this… if a black hole is produced by the LHC and the worst case scenario occurs, that it does not evaporate, but grows and escapes the confines of the LHC containment, then we will have several weeks to watch our planet be destroyed.

The black hole will likely fall through the center of the earth on some kind of eliptical orbit, possibly emerging from the crust into our atmosphere several times before it settles into a little nest of feasting on Earths gravitational center.

Plenty of time to exact painful revenge on the smug Ueber IQ geniuses who killed us all.

Course this will make the current economic crisis seem like Mardi-Gras in Shangri-La…

On the Austrian website LHC Kritik from Markus Goritschnig you find a very interesting article of Stephen Hawking from 1974. There is also a debate about black holes in http://www.larecherche.fr of february 2009.
The discussion about LHC/Cern must urgently come out of the circles of physicists. Its a matter für Lawyers “Immunity”, for international law “Extraterritorial site…” für health related issues “Radiation protection”, for environmentalists “magnetic fields and health” and for the ordinary people living in the surroundings of Geneva. How can anybody be sure that there could not be a second “Helium” accident, which causes an explosion and does harm to the normal citizen of Geneva?

1974: According to young scientist Steve Hawking black holes may be explosive..

Recently I read a paper published by Nature-Times in 1974 (Olga mentioned it). It is about a theory by Dr. Stephen Hawking about black holes. The then young astronomer suggested that black holes tend to get smaller and smaller and always end in an explosion which is enormous und distastrous. As this process takes such a long period of time to develop, such explosions are seldom and haven’t yet been observed. The article ended with the oversation that Hawking’s theory was sure to be subjected to intense scrutiny in the future. Does anybody know if this has happend? If Hawking was right his theory would mean for the CERN experiment that the black holes that may develop there are very very dangerous as they are small and near their end that is an disasterous explosion.
Ruth, Switzerland

Dear Ruth
yes your question must be answered, but I am not a physicist, but just a person who thinks that life and health must be preserved. Now I read the Planet Earth from Rosalie Bertell. It is really frigthening how our whole planet is in danger. We all know about the incredible increase of cancers due to nuclear fallout. But as the mighty and rich weapon-industry does not stop their life and environment destroying experiments, which take place not only during war, it can be only the normal citizen, which protests. Or a group of citizens. I am very sorry to say that our nice country Switzerland does not have an open discussion about all the implications of the LHC Experiment. Switzerland has a special task, because of its neutrality, in my opinion.
Good morning
Olga

That article is about astronomical black holes.
Those are black holes so massive they make the
sun look like an meteor. When anything massive
explodes, it will be disastrous for anything near
it. It doesn’t have to be a black hole, it could
be two moons colliding or maybe even just a bomb
dropping on your neighborhood.

Astronomical black holes are objects at least nine times
more massive than our sun. That means an astronomical
black hole is heavier than all of the sun, the planets,
their satellites, the asteroids and the comets put together.

The black holes in the article mentioned
in this blog refers to particle physics
black holes. These black
holes are very very tiny (tinier than an electron)
and when they explode they create a shower of elementary
particles and energy. However, those particles are also
correspondingly so small you won’t even feel it.
In fact, at this very moment, a shower of energetic
particles are passing through you. Yet, you don’t feel
anything different, do you?

That’s because particle physics black holes
obey different rules of physics than astronomical
black holes. While the quantum physics of the very
small can be safely neglected when discussing
astronomical black holes, the quantum effects of
the very small are the rules that particle black
holes live by.

Particle black holes won’t be as frightening to
children like Zephir if only physicists named
them differently. If they were called femtolets,
people won’t be troubled by them so much.
Physicists had so much excitement when they discovered
femtolets they decided to name them black holes because
femtolets reminded them of astronomical black holes.
Never mind that the Einstein field equations
won’t do much good with femtolets because they are
so tiny and so light.

Unfortunately, those physicists forgot that the image
of black holes in the common people’s mind has been
clouded by hollywood and PBS/Discover/National Geographic
documentaries. Common people associate black holes with
awesome destruction and utter invincibility. Those astronomical
black holes have galaxy-destroying powers.

But what made femtolets
awesome to physicists is that during their decay, femtolets
are supposed to punch through to other universes, kinda
like what wormholes do. As we all know
from Star Trek, wormholes are the children of black holes.
For this similarity and some other reasons, femtolets were called
black holes; which regrettably frightened little
children like Zephir when they heard that the LHC can produce
femtol… I mean black holes.

You will notice that if there is anything for us to be
frightened about, it should be gamma ray bursters and false
vacuums. However, those ideas have yet to percolate to the
people’s mind so they ignore it. You can be sure that
once GRBs and false vacuums are properly marketed to
the Zephirs of this world, that they will demand
legislation to prevent scientists from experimenting
with them.

“Publish your papers in “Physical Review Letters” and we’ll think about that possibility.”

I would be satisfied, Barry, if you just stopped blathering on about “conservation of nonexistence” and violating the laws of conservation of energy in your imaginary brain.

You haven’t even proposed a thought experiment to support your point of view much less an equation nor even an experiment that could test it.

I like to think of “conservation of morality” to explain why half the world seems to be f’d up anti-social a-holes, and the other half are great, except that each person has our own good and bad sides from time to time.

And maybe, in some spiritual sense, there’s some truth to that. Maybe.

But I wouldn’t advance my wild speculation as a scientific theory and assert it’s correct! I have no basis for it.

You don’t either. None that you’ve seen fit to share, anyhoo.

I’m sure you are earnest and well meaning. But you talk a lot of crap.

Understanding the LHC, Large Hadron Collider, is important, as it could open the door for time travel. It’s what we were working on in the underground labs in Germany, as Hitler was obsessed with Time Travel. We are coming full circle, to the lab experiment that caused the loops in the physical program. I can strongly sense it, yet I pause and wonder if this is not a metaphor for our reality as a biogenetic experiment in linear time and emotion, in a lab in a university/universe.

Metaphysically speaking … this underground project in Switzerland, takes me back to the Nazi WWII underground experiments with time travel technologies. Somehow there is a synchronicity with the LHC and those experiments that merges the two. Only time will tell. I also do not believe it is the first experiment with the LHC that will do it. The energies will build and something will give. Maybe it is supposed to open the back hole, worm hole, stargate, or whatever is needed to breach the closing of the program. Very cool and feels right!

Some people think it is better to live on the Mars, if the earth has become too dirty or too crowded. Of course those people can think like this. They can use all scientific knowledge which is available for going and living on the Mars or making longer trips through the space. But why do they hide their intentions? May be because the ordinary citizen would like to stop paying those intentions and ideas, which come under the motto: basic research….

Casado, et al issued a revision of the paper on February 17, 2009. The original version, dated January 19, 2009 stated in its conclusion “We conclude that, for the RS scenario and black holes described by the metric, the growth of black holes to catastrophic size does not seem possible.” The revised version, dated February 17, 2009, states “We conclude that, for the RS scenario and black holes described by the metric, the growth of black holes to catastrophic size is not possible.” While some of you might consider the article about which we are commenting to be the ravings of a luddite, it seems to have had the effect of causing some of the worlds best physicists to change their conclusion in a paper concerning the possibility of catastrophic black holes. No mean feat for amateurs, eh? For my own edification, I will convert both pdf versions to text and compare them word-for-word to see if there were any revisions made in the body of the paper to support the revision of the wording of the conclusion. If there were none, that raises the question of why the wording of the initial conclusion was changed, for any reason other than political conformance.

Following up on my previous comment, I converted both version of the paper from pdf to txt and compared them in Open Office Writer. There are many small differences in the bodies of the papers. Someone far more knowledgeable than I please review those changes to see if they support the re-wording of the conclusion from “does not seem possible” to “is not possible.”

Very interesting that this post is not listed at the new site’s greatest hits sidebar. I think the move to MIT’s Tech Review is a disaster. KFC has lost his independence. Only “scientifically correct” posts will be allowed from now on. I hope they’re paying him well.

Even backdated as far as 2000 and 2002(http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2002/08/54507), this group has made absolutely no headway. CERN/LHC is a 10 billion blunder and has yet to produce ROI.

If all the mass in the Universe was inside a singularity how could the Big Bang occurr ? I propose the Universe never expanded to begin with. Once agitated by some minute glitch say Quantum Tunneling or Higher Dimensional Planes Intersecting it collapsed into what we live in now ! viola’ Dark Energy Puzzle Solved. Next. If mass is an illusion then maybe the holographic Universe model coupled with Scale Invariance explains alot.

Aren’t we living inside a black hole since not even light can travel faster than the edge of space/time, . . . therefore it can never escape the Universe completely.

Everyone is afraid of the dark.
Don’t worry even if they blew the Universe up it would regenerate and since no one is there to observe how long its taking to reform it would actually happen relativly fast and we would right back here on a Earth like planet with a new history to try and learn what the previous Universe failed to. Matter is neither created nor destroyed. This law is never violated even with regards to Quantum Tunneling. The Universe lives forever in a cycle of Death,Birth, and Rebirth… This is the Yin/Yang Duality that Buddha sought relief from.
I like to think Buddha would smile at a Black Hole.
How about you ?

these blackholes shouldnt be created, man-kind is messing with forces beyond our understanding and if one of these blackholes were to escape and reach through the center of the earth it would destroy the earth inside out.